Catching Lightning
by SporksN'Knives
Summary: Tamaki regrets telling Haruhi she's a burden to him. When he decides to apologize, he discovers she's been transferred to a school in the United States. How far do his feelings for her really go? TamakixHaruhi


She was always there, tormenting him whenever he closed his eyes. Her angelic, innocent smile always tore him apart from the inside out. Her eyes, large and the deepest brown he had ever seen, bored holes right through him whenever his eyelids fell together.

Her name made him ache inside. Haruhi. Never was there a more beautiful name to him. To him, it transformed his definition of beauty into something tangible. It also made the significance of the words pain and stupidity quite clear.

It wasn't her pain and stupidity, however. It was his. He was the one who had to speak so harshly to her in the first place. He was the one to cause the damage. He was the one to tear them apart.

"Tamaki Suoh, you're such an idiot!" he shouted into one of the pillows littering his unkempt bed. Most of the sheets had sluffed off one side due to his tossing and turning for hours on end, unable to sleep. He had tried calling his best friend, Kyoya Ootori, to try and get some advice to mend his and Haruhi's relationship, or rather what was left of it, but after about the first 20 calls, Tamaki found his every call directed straight to voicemail. And he never failed in leaving one every time the phone blipped at him to start talking. Kyoya wasn't going to be happy when he turned his phone on in the morning and saw the he had about 50 voicemails, but Tamaki didn't care.

On his nightstand lay a letter stained by tears. Though he had cried, the tears that had caused the page to ripple weren't his own. They were Haruhi's.

"Tamaki Senpai,

I've been chosen to be an exchange student in America. I'm leaving in two days. I would have given you more notice if I had been able to focus on more than taking care of the transfer paperwork. I'll be very dedicated to my studies while I'm there, so don't worry if you don't hear from me. I've already been corresponding with the family who will be allowing me to stay with them, and I'm sure I will be well taken-care of.

"Just know that despite the harsh words you spoke to me the last time we talked, I still have respect for you. Even though things will probably never be the same between us, I still hope the best for you. I know that someday you will meet a girl who will seem to be the product of your dreams, and I'm sure you'll fall in love with her." The tearstains had begun to litter the stationary more than ever here. "You might be one of the dimmer bulbs in the pack, but that doesn't stop you from being one of the brightest lights in my life. I guess I'll see you whenever we chance to meet again. Until then,

Fujioka Haruhi."

The letter had been written with such a mix of formality and her characteristic apathy that Tamaki wouldn't have been able to read between the lines and figure out how she felt when she was writing it if it hadn't been for the tearstains. He had received the letter only earlier in the evening, and knew he still had time to visit Haruhi and give her the hope that their relationship could still be pieced back together, but something within him said he was the last person she wanted to see, despite what the letter seemed to say.

Tamaki glanced at his phone for the thousandth time that night, longing to pick it up and dial Haruhi's number rather than Kyoya's. More than once he had reached out to touch it with the full intention of calling Haruhi and apologizing for every time he had brushed her off, but then he remembered his final words to her. "Shut up! Shut up and get out! You're being a burden." What girl wanted to hear that? Certainly not any girl he had come into contact with, and certainly not Haruhi.

"Two days…two days and she'll be gone." He whispered, staring into the unrelenting darkness shrouding the far end of his room. "Haruhi…gone, a million miles away."

Tamaki groaned at himself and flipped over onto his stomach again, pulling the only pillow remaining on his bed taught over the back of his head. "IDIOT!"

~Two months later~

Haruhi found herself walking through a sunny California park on a Saturday afternoon. So far she liked schooling in America, and because the school she was attending didn't have a uniform code, she hadn't been mistaken to be a male student like she had been at Ouran. Her hair had grown slightly longer, and she had barrettes pinning her bangs out of the way.

She sat down on a wooden bench wrapping around a massive oak tree to gather her thoughts. Since leaving Japan and Ouran Academy along with it, she had only thought of the Host Club as a whole a few times. She had been keeping a journal, and noticed that when she wasn't describing schools in America or the living conditions and other related things, her entries seemed to focus on Tamaki. She knew she was in love with him, but still couldn't see the reason in thinking about him as much as she did. She had told him in her letter not to worry about her only because she wanted him to worry about her. She knew it was reverse psychology, but it seemed to work for a lot of people. What was the worst that could happen?

Haruhi let her head fall back ever so slightly as the sun caressed her face with its warm, gentle fingers. The sensation reminded her of Tamaki's hand on her cheek.

'I'm not going to think about that. Not now,' she thought, rigidly sitting back up. 'I have homework to get done. Why am I even here?'

Haruhi's cell phone jingled in her pocket. She brought it out and saw that she had one new message from none other than Tamaki. "Thinking of you" it read. Haruhi slapped her phone shut. Five minutes later it rang again with another message. "Your hair looks nice, by the way."

Haruhi studied this message for a few moments. How did he know what her hair looked like? She reached up to the barrette restraining her bangs and shivered. She looked around, but saw no one. She glanced over at the high school campus across the park. Should she be going back there to get her things done instead of here?

A voice stopped her. "I figured you'd be the last one out of the building."

Haruhi stood and looked up into the tree. Standing on one of the lower limbs of the oak was Tamaki Suoh.

"Senpai," she breathed. "What are you doing here?"

"You said not to worry about you if I didn't hear anything from you, but I couldn't do that. I had to be sure you were alright."

Haruhi had wanted to see him in the weeks preceding this moment, but now she wanted him gone. The bitterness she had suppressed within herself was returning.

"Well, I'm completely fine. The family I'm staying with is treating me like family, and I'm liking my studies."

Tamaki's violet eyes softened, causing Haruhi's heart to melt. It had been so long since she had seen him smile at her. She felt herself softening and built herself back up on the inside.

"Are you really alright? Kyoya told me the twins said you told them you missed Ouran Academy."

Haruhi swallowed a sudden bout of irritation. She couldn't tell the Hikaru and Kaoru nearly anything!

"W-well, naturally! I've gotten so used to Ouran and how things operate over there, and I miss it. That's not saying that the schools over here aren't just as elite but-" the words caught in her throat when Tamaki started climbing down out of the oak to the ground. He tripped over a tree root at the bottom but caught himself on the bench as he hauled himself over it. Haruhi was suddenly reminded of the days of daddy and his daughter, and clenched her fists in resistance of the memory. She could feel her nails cutting into her palms but ignored the pain.

Tamaki approached her and seemed to be lost for words. "Haruhi," he said after a moment. "I-I…" he lifted his arms to his sides, then sighed and let them fall back. "I spent weeks trying to come up with something worth saying to you. I've done that a million times for the clients in the host club when it was still going, and I couldn't think of anything worth saying. Not a single thing. All I can think of to say is…I'm sorry, Haruhi."

Haruhi restrained the swirling anger and the desire to run to him and throw her arms around him. She remained steadfast in her stance on the concrete.

"I'm sorry for treating you as poorly as I did. You didn't deserve to be spoken to like that."

"Senpai, you think to tell me this after I've tried so hard to forget?"

Tamaki sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Just…please hear me out, as cheesy as this is gonna sound."

Haruhi nodded, her eyes filled with her anxiety.

Tamaki swallowed. "Haruhi, I…um…" he took another breath and forced it from his chest. "The chances of finding as wonderful and-and beautiful a girl as you is like catching lightning. I've been in a thousand different relationships and harbored feelings for each individual client I host, I'm not gonna lie, but I've never felt as strongly about anyone as I do you." Haruhi didn't look convinced. "I guess what I'm trying to say is…" Tamaki sighed again and searched the depths of Haruhi's golden-brown orbs for any response to what he was saying. "I love you."

Haruhi's eyes widened in one of the expressions Tamaki treasured as much as life itself. But then she opened her mouth.

"I'm sorry, senpai, but I don't buy it. You're going to have to prove that you mean it." Tamaki noticed tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.

'Where's your corner of shame when you need it?' Tamaki wondered. "How?" he asked.

Haruhi shrugged. "Any way you can prove to me that you meant what you said."

Tamaki hung his head. How was he supposed to go about this one? Normally word of mouth was enough. He lifted his eyes to meet hers and stepped closer to her, reaching his hand for his fingertips to brush her cheek. He was relieved when Haruhi seemed to respond to his touch, because she blushed when his hand touched her.

Tamaki hesitated slightly, but moved closer to Haruhi, moving his hand from her cheek to the back of her head. He gently pulled her closer to him and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.

Haruhi stood rigid as a statue for the longest time. Not because she was angry or refused to return his kiss, but because she was completely shocked. She hadn't ever really been kissed before, not once in her life, by anyone aside from her parents, and Kanako didn't count, but there was something being communicated to her that caused her to realize that Tamaki had really meant what he had said about loving her. She took a moment to take in the billions of elements of the moment. The warmth of Tamaki's lips, his hand cradling the back of her head, his fingers intertwining with her hair, the arm that had found its way around her waist. Her eyelids fluttered shut as she reached up to place her hand on his cheek. She wasn't quite sure how, but she returned his kiss, allowing him to pull her closer against his chest.

Tamaki opened his eyes just enough to see Haruhi's face. He was surprised to see that her eyes were closed and she had seemed to accept what he had said.

After a few more seconds, Tamaki pulled away from Haruhi and looked her full in the face. A single teardrop escaped the confines of her left eye and rolled onto Tamaki's wrist.

"Proof enough?"

Haruhi smiled. "Proof enough." She swallowed. "That part about catching lightning…did you think of that before or just now?"

Tamaki grinned. "On the spot. Creative, wasn't it?"

Haruhi laughed. "Your romantic skills scare me sometimes, senpai."


End file.
